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AlienVault OSSIM vs Snare comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

AlienVault OSSIM
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
12th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Snare
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
45th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (40th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of AlienVault OSSIM is 1.6%, down from 4.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Snare is 0.6%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
AlienVault OSSIM1.6%
Snare0.6%
Other97.8%
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

BP
Independent Contractor at a comms service provider with 5,001-10,000 employees
Enables cost-effective security management for small businesses
Scaling for USM is always challenging for any product unless it is purpose-built or overbuilt at the front end. They will use Palo Alto and its competitors, and LevelBlue will manage that implementation. The main area where the AlienVault product was lacking around the 2018 timeframe was in its ability to scale. By pushing it to a cloud-based system, they've largely alleviated scale issues. It's native in Amazon but will also run in Azure. They have worked with cloud service providers to offer enough throughput at a cost reasonable for a corporation. Scaling was their biggest problem, and they've largely conquered those issues.
Frank Eargle - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Security Engineer at Glasshouse Systems
A highly scalable solution that is easy to manage and super easy to set up
We use Snare for picking up Windows logs, and we used to use it for SQL as well. We had used it for Linux once or twice. We're mainly using it for Windows and Windows flat files The most valuable feature of Snare is flexibility or the ability to filter all things you don't want and don't have…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The dashboard is the solution's most valuable aspect; it brings everything into one central point where I can actually look at it and go, "Okay, I understand what's going on," and the solution works well and allows me to have visibility into anomalous events."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"The solution is very stable. Compared to Qradar and Splunk, it's very stable."
"AlienVault OSSIM is an enterprise solution that sells easily. It is rated highly by organizations."
"What I like about this product, is that it is a fully-fledged solution."
"Asset discovery is good."
"The threat policies of the solution are always very advanced and the best in the market, and they are very persistent in terms of keeping up with security protocols."
"The most valuable features of AlienVault OSSIM are case management, ease of configuration, and investigation."
"The most valuable feature of Snare is flexibility or the ability to filter all things you don't want and don't have security value."
"Snare has good agents, especially for Windows."
"The best thing about Snare is its format and consistency."
 

Cons

"From a management console perspective and the maturity of the dashboards, I would probably put it slightly behind some of the other players that have been in the market for ages."
"The price of this solution is very high and it could be cheaper."
"It takes some time. It does not give me a prompt response for any such [malicious] traffic. It takes time to get that alert from the AlienVault system."
"There are somewhat more false positives with the user behavior analytics, which could benefit from an additional machine learning model to detect user patterns more rapidly."
"It's so hard to configure and explore something new on it."
"AlienVault OSSIM is costly."
"The solution is not scalable."
"The correlation engine needs to be improved."
"Users will initially find it difficult to identify the event types and installation in Snare."
"Snare should modernize its GUI a little bit."
"The solution is now developing a SIEM-like feature on Snare Central Server, but it's not complete yet."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is open source, so it's free to use."
"AlienVault pricing is the best. Whatever cost you are paying, you are getting a return on every penny... It's not like your IBM, your QRadar, or Splunk, where the cost is too high."
"AlienVault OSSIM is free."
"The price of AlienVault OSSIM is too high sometimes for us to present to our customers. The price should be lower. We are on a three-year license to use the solution. We had to pay extra for the support."
"AlienVault OSSIM is an open-source solution."
"OSSIM is free."
"When comparing AlienVault OSSIM to Microsoft Sentinel, AlienVault OSSIM incurs additional costs due to its licensing price structure. If you are using AlienVault for security purposes at a certain level it can have a higher price point than the current pricing of Microsoft Sentinel."
"OSSIM is open source, and USM is the paid license. So, if you want, you can switch to USM. There you will have to buy a license, and they have a support team that helps you out on issues you face."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate Snare's pricing a four out of ten."
"Snare is a cheap solution because a lot of customers are using it."
"Snare has reasonable pricing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise8
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AlienVault OSSIM?
It depends. I would need to review their cost models, but generally, they are on a scaled basis based on throughput usage. Because it's a software as a service solution for their core product for U...
What needs improvement with AlienVault OSSIM?
Scaling for USM is always challenging for any product unless it is purpose-built or overbuilt at the front end. They will use Palo Alto and its competitors, and LevelBlue will manage that implement...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

OSSIM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Council Rock School District
Military, Defence and Security Agencies, Banking Finance and Insurance companies, Retail, Health and Utilities.
Find out what your peers are saying about AlienVault OSSIM vs. Snare and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.